10 P. MIDFORD
are good reasons to focus on the Nordic countries, irrespective of everything else. The Norwegian challenge is intimately linked to the European
Continent, as one of several points of contention is the extent to which
Norway will build subsea cables to sell surplus Norwegian renewable electricity to the Continent. This illustrates one of the broader challenges
facing a renewable energy transition in Europe, namely the lack of crossborder interconnectors, although the EU has ambitious goals. Specifically,
the European Commission set a target for each member state to build
interconnector capacity equal to 10% of their domestic installed generating capacity by 2020, a goal most members largely met, with a further
goal of 15% by 2030. Spain would have been an interesting country in
this respect, as the Iberian Peninsula is a bit of an energy island, with
only weak interconnectors to France, but with a doubling of capacity realized in 2015 (planete energies 2016). This again highlights the centrality
of grid development, along with storage and cross-border and liberalized energy markets as the defining challenges and opportunities for
renewables moving forward.
Contribution
This book makes a distinctive contribution to our knowledge regarding
renewable energy as it is one of the first to focus on new challenges
to renewables, what we call second-stage issues. If first-stage renewable
energy development is symbolized by wind turbines, solar PV panels, and
the FIT, stage two is symbolized by grids, grid batteries, and hydrogen.
There are currently almost no book-length studies that focus on these
issues.
One book that begins to address these issues is Jinhui Duan’s Grid
Connection of China’s Renewable Energy and Its Energy Structure (Duan
2015), although this work only focuses grid expansion, not smart grids,
storage, hydrogen, or market liberalization. Another distinctive feature of
the present work is that it has a strong focus on Japan’s development of
renewable energy. The only other volume that does so is our (Moe and
Midford 2014) edited book, although that volume did not focus on the
stage-two new challenges we examine in this book for the obvious reason
that these challenges had not yet grown apparent at that stage. Instead,
these are challenges that have moved to the forefront of renewable energy
development since 2014.
are good reasons to focus on the Nordic countries, irrespective of everything else. The Norwegian challenge is intimately linked to the European
Continent, as one of several points of contention is the extent to which
Norway will build subsea cables to sell surplus Norwegian renewable electricity to the Continent. This illustrates one of the broader challenges
facing a renewable energy transition in Europe, namely the lack of crossborder interconnectors, although the EU has ambitious goals. Specifically,
the European Commission set a target for each member state to build
interconnector capacity equal to 10% of their domestic installed generating capacity by 2020, a goal most members largely met, with a further
goal of 15% by 2030. Spain would have been an interesting country in
this respect, as the Iberian Peninsula is a bit of an energy island, with
only weak interconnectors to France, but with a doubling of capacity realized in 2015 (planete energies 2016). This again highlights the centrality
of grid development, along with storage and cross-border and liberalized energy markets as the defining challenges and opportunities for
renewables moving forward.
Contribution
This book makes a distinctive contribution to our knowledge regarding
renewable energy as it is one of the first to focus on new challenges
to renewables, what we call second-stage issues. If first-stage renewable
energy development is symbolized by wind turbines, solar PV panels, and
the FIT, stage two is symbolized by grids, grid batteries, and hydrogen.
There are currently almost no book-length studies that focus on these
issues.
One book that begins to address these issues is Jinhui Duan’s Grid
Connection of China’s Renewable Energy and Its Energy Structure (Duan
2015), although this work only focuses grid expansion, not smart grids,
storage, hydrogen, or market liberalization. Another distinctive feature of
the present work is that it has a strong focus on Japan’s development of
renewable energy. The only other volume that does so is our (Moe and
Midford 2014) edited book, although that volume did not focus on the
stage-two new challenges we examine in this book for the obvious reason
that these challenges had not yet grown apparent at that stage. Instead,
these are challenges that have moved to the forefront of renewable energy
development since 2014.